Ireland's Shaksperiana [manuscript] / 1796

*7 ._3_^? 232 Collection (A) of the Papers put forth as Shakespeare's, original soHq^
forgeries, executed by W. H. Ireland, in 1796, mounted,
each leaf signed by the maker > /s^r*

fet /2n3Fc. Uue morocco, gilt edges; from Astle's Collection, with his

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an undated Letter m which he speaks of "The Shakespeare
Autographs, and his own misery, m /Jz. Keare

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BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER, I

MONDAY MORNING, SEPT. 24, 1877.

IB ELAND'S FORGERIES.

A great library is like a shore upon which
the restless tide casts all its burdens. There
are the rare and beautiful shells, to use Sir
Isaac Newton's figure, of the illimitable oceai
of truth. There are also the waifs and st~ays
of the world of literature. To its shelves
come both books and the crude materials out
of which books were to have been made,—
these latter oftentimes the fragments of
wrecks, as it were, with sad memories cling- i
ing to them of wasted lives and lost hopes.
Among these fragments stranded in our pub-
lic library is one of uncommon interest. 1.
is but a scrap or two of paper, it is true, upon
which are wiitten a few almost illegible words.
Yet these bits of paper, insignificant and un-
interesting as they seem now, caused a sensa-
tion eighty years ago in England almost un-
exampled in its intensity. "When they were
shown to Boaden; a scholar of some note,
they excited in him, to use his own words,
"a tremor of the purest delight." Boswell,
the son of Johnson's biographer, fell down on
his knees before them, exclaiming: "Well, I
"shall now die contented, since I have lived
"to witness the present day. I now kiss the*
"invaluable relics of our bard, and thanks to
"God that I have lived to see them."

Their story in brief is this : A young con-
veyancer's clerk named Ireland, a lad of
seventeen- suddenly produced some old manu-
scripts which he said had been given him by
a gentleman who wished to remain unknown
On examination they were pronounced to be
genuine Shakespearian documents, and uni-
versal was the joy at the supposed discovery.
A few only, chief among whom was Malone,
the accomplished student of Shakespeare, de-
nied their authenticity. At first only com-
paratively short manuscripts were produced,
but at length it was announced that the manu-
script of a play called "Vortigern and Row-
"ena" had been discovered. This increased
the excitement tenfold. Sheridan, then lessee
of the Drury-lane theatre, bought the play for
£300 and the half-profits for the first sixty
nights. To Kemble was given the. part of
Voriigem. The failure of the play, brought
about in great measure by Kemble' s peculiar
emphasis, amidst the wildest uproar of the
audience, of the line, —

"And wLen this solemn mockery is o'er,"
was complete, and the play was withdrawn.

About the same time the elder Ireland pub-
lished a description of the manuscripts with
fac-similes. This publication, together with
the failure of Vortigern, hastened the end.
Malone now found it easy to show them to be
forgeries, and soon after the "Confessions of
"W. H. Ireland" was given to the world."

Great was the chagrin of all those who had
maintained the authenticity of the manu-
scripts at having been so thoroughly duped
by a boy, and it was not strange that some
attempted to deny their championship. In a
copy of the confessions in the Barton collec-
tion of the public library, which belonged to
Caley the antiquary, to whom the papers
were submitted, is a note signed by him de-
claring that Ireland in his work had entirely
misrepresented his opinion. Yet the for-
geries were by no means clumsily done, j
and considerable ingenuity was displayed in
giving to them a semblance of genuineness.
The paper on which they were written was
taken from the blank leaves ot books pub- j
lished in Shakespeare's day. The threads
attaching the seals to the deeds were pro- •
cured from a bit of old tapestry hanging in
an ante-chamber to the house of lords.

The specimens m the library have a pecu-
liar interest, as they were mounted by Ireland
himself, and each leaf is signed with his
initials. For a title there is written in a bold
boyish hand, "Ireland's Shaksperiana. A:D:
"1796. W™ Hy. Ireland." They consist of
signatures of Shakespeare and others, prom-
issory notes, bills for playing, together with a
memorandum relating to Vortigern. Opposite
the signature of Queen Elizabeth, Ireland
has wiitten his motive for the forgery of the
letter, of which only this signature is given :
"The commentators on Shakspear have
"alledged that King James the first penned
"an epistle to Shakspear which prompted me
"to write the above epistle as from Queen
"Elizabeth. This was also done that our
"bard might be thought worthy the notice of
"the greatest personage of his time."

Not the least interesting thing in this
little volume is a letter of Ireland's without
a date, but evidently after the confession of
his forgeries. He closes with these words:
"Pray excuse this scrawl, but I have had
"another night without a moment's deep,
"and am more like a man drunk than in his
"senses." Beading this, and remembering
the blighted promises of his remaining life
and the hopeless mediocrity of his later writ-
ings,— we might almost have envied for him
the fate of "the marvellous boy" Chatterton.
As it is, few literal y achievements, save that
of Chatterton, can be compared with the pro-
duction, in the course of a few months, of
these manuscripts, including a play of over
2800 lines, by a boy of seven teen. ^t<Aii ^0

New Yorfe:, Tuesday, October 9, IS 7 7.

Ireland's Forgeries.

POSSIBLE PEDIGBKB OF THE MSS. IN THE BOSTON
LIB BABY.

To the Editors of the Evening Post :

In a late cumber of your journal yon copied
from the Boston Advertiser an article In relatloa
to the Shakespeare forgeries by Ireland, saying
that "atcrap or two of the papers are in toe
Boston Library. " In 1S51 James H. H*okeit,
the actor, presented to me a oopy of "An Apol-
ogy for the Believers of the Shafcspeare Paper* "
It is an octavo volume of 630 pages, printed in
1797, Ou a flyleaf in the book is the following
writing:

" This Book was written by G. Chalmers, Esq ,
Chief Clerk In the Earl of Liverpool's oflice. It
is generally believed that Dir. Chalmers lncended
this work to prove the authenticity of the papers
laid before the public by Air Ireland, bat on
young Ireland's avowing the whole to be a for-
gery, Mr Chalmers, not willing to loss* so mach
iaboa - and Industry, gave it to the world in its
present form."

On an adjoining fly-leaf, In the handwriting of
Mr. Baokett, is the following:

"These 8bakspeare Forgeries, young Ireland's
original work, interspersed wish his own mar-
ginal notes and copious M8. remarks upon
incidents connected with their production and
first exhibition to the public, as well a? the
imposition of authority practised upon his cred-
ulous father before they were suomitced to gen-
eral inspection, were pledged to th<* lace Charges
Mathews, the celebrated mimic, for fifty poauds
(£50), by young Ireland, wno never was aole to
redeem them, and eventually so<d the work to
him. At Mathews's deatn and sale of bis effects
they were purchased by John ft Ourrant, a
wealthy stockbroker of London, who sold thsm j
to me. 1 sold them to Benry S evens, an Acnerl- :
can and a collector of literary curiosities «n Lon-
don. J as. B. Hackbtt."

"The scrap or two in the Boston Ltorary"
must have been a part of the papers mentioned
by Mr. Baokett. J. J. M.

FlshkUl-on Hudson, October 1, 1877.